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from the avoiding-planned-obsolescence-and-DRM dept.
The KDE community has an outreach campaign encouraging the use of the Plasma desktop by people with older, but usable, laptops. Vista10 support will come to an end and Vista11 has been designed not to run on many still viable models of computer due to several factors including Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) requirements centered around TPM-2.0. GNU/Linux can not only keep the old system working, it can improve its performance, ease of use, and general security. KDE Plasma can be part of that.
Even if you agree to this tech extortion now, in a few years time, they will do it again as they have done many times in the past.
But things don't have to be this way...
Upgrade the smart way! Keep the machine you've got and switch to Linux and Plasma.
Linux can give new life to your laptop. Combined with KDE's Plasma desktop, you get all the advantages of the safety, stability and hi tech of Linux, with all the features of a beautiful, modern and powerful graphic environment.
Their campaign page covers where and how beginners can get help, what the differences are, the benefits gained, and more.
[Editor's Comment: This is obviously a KDE/Plasma centric promotion - which doesn't mean that it is bad but there are lots of other options too. Which Linux OS and desktop would you recommend for someone wanting to make the move from Windows to Linux? Which are the best for a beginner, and which desktops provide the most intuitive interface for someone who has never sat down in front of a Linux computer before?--JR]
Previously:
(2025) Microsoft is Digging its Own Grave With Windows 11, and It Has to Stop
(2023) The Wintel Duopoly Plans to Send 240 Million PCs to the Landfill
(2023) Two Security Flaws in the TPM 2.0 Specs Put Cryptographic Keys at Risk
(2022) Report Claims Almost Half of Systems are Ineligible for Windows 11 Upgrades
(2021) Windows 11 Will Leave Millions of PCs Behind, and Microsoft is Struggling to Explain Why
(2019) Microsoft's Ongoing Tactics Against Competitors Explained, Based on its Own Documents
(2016) Windows 10 Anniversary Update to Require TPM 2.0 Module
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jelizondo on Sunday June 08, @04:36AM
I'm partial to KDE Plasma, which I'm currently running on my main driver over Fedora. It's kind of different from Windows but I think an average user can get used to it pretty quickly and the availability of apps and whatnot is good.
But, I still have a Win10 machine which I use for games (or emergencies) which is normally not connected to the Internet, point of fact the Ethernet/Bluetooth chip is disabled in BIOS just to make sure. No updates or whatever, but I mostly play old stuff for which updates are no longer available anyway.
For a long while I had to use Win because emloyer/clients demanded it, but I got out as soon as I could. Having to buy new hardware so MS can get more telemetry from you and serve you more ads is stupid; switch now and in a couple of days you'll ask yourself hwy you took so long to do it.